It has taken more than 100 years to come to light, but the web of intrigue and
corruption that toppled China's last emperor has finally been pieced
together by a Chinese historian.

Plucked from his home as a toddler and declared a living god, Puyi was taken wailing and screaming to the Forbidden City to continue more than 2,000 years of imperial rule, aged just two years and 10 months.

But just a few years later in 1912, as China boiled with revolution, his own adoptive mother, the Empress Dowager Longyu, signed abdication papers forcing him from the Dragon Throne.

Ever since, students of the end of the imperial dynasty have puzzled over why she appeared so willing to do so. Now Jia Yinghua, a 60-year-old historian and former government official, has discovered the answer: she was bribed with 20,000 taels, or 1700lb, of silver, and warned she might end up being beheaded if she refused.

"What happened is so sensitive it has taken more than 100 years before it can be revealed," said Mr Jia, who assembled his latest work, The Extraordinary Life of the Last Emperor, from the secret archives at Zhongnanhai, the Chinese leadership compound, and from interviews with relations of the imperial courtiers.

Puyi, whose life was featured in the film The Last Emperor by Bernardo Bertolucci, is still a figure of public fascination in China. "He was unique," said Mr Jia. "He lived through three dynasties. The entire tumult of China's last century can be summed up in him. He went from emperor to gardener, and in his last years he hung a picture of himself with Chairman Mao on his bedstead."

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Indeed the key moments of Puyi's life strike a familiar chord even today, making some of the details of his biography still too sensitive to be published in China.

"The time of his abdication was a time of corrupting and buying government officials," said Mr Jia.

The imperial court in the last days of the Qing dynasty was a shadow of its former self. Foreign countries, particularly Britain, had humbled the Qing in battle, carved out rich territories and extracted huge payments.

Starved of income, the Qing court had even pawned the lavish silk robes of Puyi's predecessor, the Guangxu emperor, said Mr Jia.

Outside the Forbidden City, uprisings were sweeping the land as citizens called for a republic.

In order to stabilise the situation, the court appointed Yuan Shikai, a general with influence over a powerful northern army, to be prime minister.

Yuan Shikai played a key role in forcing the abdication of Puyi (Rex Features)

But according to Mr Jia, Mr Yuan was determined to remove the last emperor from power, by turns cajoling, threatening and then bribing key figures at court.

Not only did he bribe Puyi's adoptive mother, but he also corrupted her closest eunuch, Xiao Dezheng, and Prince Yikuang, one of the most powerful men at court, said Mr Jia.

"In 1911, The Times reported that Prince Yikuang had two million silver dollars in his Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank account," said Mr Jia. "That was the result of bribes to remove the monarch."

The eunuch, meanwhile, received a similar sum, equivalent to more than £1 billion in today's money. He used it to build a house in Tianjin stuffed with treasures looted from the palace.

In return, the eunuch told the Dowager Empress that she would be rich if she signed the abdication papers. "And if she refused, she would end up like Louis XVI during the French Revolution: beheaded," said Mr Jia.

Mr Yuan did not stop there. He put pressure on the court by masterminding a series of threatening letters.

"He had a good relationship with the Russian embassy and he asked them to write a letter saying if you do not sign the papers, the Western powers would force it through anyway," said Mr Jia, citing the archives at Zhongnanhai.

Mr Yuan also secretly authored a telegram from 44 army commanders calling for the empire to dissolve, according to the notes of his aide, Zeng Yujun.

After abdicating, Puyi was forced to leave the Forbidden City and briefly became a puppet ruler for the Japanese in a corner of North East China that they had conquered.

After the Communist Party came to power, Puyi was treated cordially by Chairman Mao and was eventually allowed to live out his days in Beijing, for a while working in the Botanical Gardens. He died in 1967, from complications of kidney cancer and heart disease.